Click here to go to the Prezi to learn more about the U.S. and Ohio in the Early 1800's.
We have been exploring electricity and the transfer of energy from one place to another. We learned about the difference between series and parallel circuits. Additionally, we tested objects to see if they were insulators or conductors.
We had the opportunity to explore energy through multiple means. The kids generated enough energy on the energy bike to light up light bulbs, power a mini fan, and a mini hair dryer! We looked at the different in the amount of energy needed to light incandescent versus florescent bulbs. The students were able to explore static electricity with the Van de Graaff generator! At other stations, the students used snap circuits to build different types of circuits with different receivers--buzzers, lights, fans, etc. The final station was an electro-magnetic motor in which the students tried to get wire that was hooked up to a battery source to move on its own using only a magnet. The class participated in a TASK party on Thursday. A TASK party is a social, improvisational event during which participants perform tasks that are written on pieces of paper and drawn at random. Once a task is finished, students wrote a new task for others and drew a new one to perform. Tasks ranged from design challenges, to social games such as duck, duck, goose, to innovation challenges. We have been learning about the Constitution and how it sets up 3 branches of government: the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. The kids pretended to be members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to create a bill to change something about our classroom. Miss Messenger was the president to represent the executive branch. She had to veto a few of the bills because they went against our school constitution (the code of conduct), but one of the bills was passed into law. The law allows for 3-4 classroom devices to be used during indoor recess! It is on a rotation system so every student will have the same number of opportunities to use the electronics during indoor recess.
Here is the link to a rap song that we listened to in order to review the 3 branches of government: https://www.flocabulary.com/3-branches-of-government/ In order to see what is really going on when we divide, students practiced division with place value blocks.
Click here to practice dividing with place value blocks. The kids have been working on letters to introduce themselves to our pen pals in South Dakota! We solved The Locker Game problem shown below to discover patterns among numbers. Students brought up intriguing observations such as looking at the number of touches a locker received and whether it was even or odd determines whether the locker was open or closed at the end of the game and discovering that lockers that were touched only 2 times were prime numbers. Various groups recorded their thinking and solved the problem in many different ways. The students worked on ecosystem projects to help them think through beneficial and harmful changes to ecosystems. We focused on how the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors in an ecosystem interact and work together. We also looked at how changes to an ecosystem can be both beneficial or harmful to an organism depending upon the changes and their consequences. It was great to see the many different ways students fulfilled the requirements: skit, video, slideshow presentation, etc. |
Miss Messenger
|